Winter Night Writing

Upon the throat of Night, the moon hung like polished horn. A star jewelled chain fixing its place prominent in a boundless expanse where things often remain unseen, unnoticed, and anything if not ephemeral. So few eyes sought this time of night. So few gave thought to turn their gaze past the how and why of a solitary life lived hour to hour. Unaware of the candid places barely hidden, where flowers bloom unbidden just past, and above the snarled tangles of reason, and the colorless mundane.

Set beneath, Arahim settled down in the dormant orchard within the walls of Cove. Leafless, and dry, swaying Winter limbs scratched at the sky. Caught by the intermittent touch of wind, carefully held aloft. Subtle lyrics to the song of a season that cannot last.

The ground was frozen hard, and broke audibly to pebbled powder with every step he took to get here. Pocked, and grey, the soil lay as monument to a cycle that, at times, refused to yield to, or even acknowledge, the gifts of anything new.

Seated, the cold radiated from the earth in throbbing, pulsating waves, numbing Arahim's crossed legs, up through his backside before settling in a tight knot in his lower back. It was a feeling he did nothing to acknowledge no matter how much a discomfort. And warmth was a thing fleeting to him since the day he once thought to turn the act of giving gift into a moment of remembrance.

A smile played across his lips regardless.

Tchort ranged in short, tight circles around him, disdainful of the weather, and quite at home. A lean, and four legged king within the bounds of what passed as civilization. Insouciant, and smug no matter what reaction he elicited as he passed. Men he knew, and understood in his own way. The nervous, uneasy scent was not a new thing to him. But the cats, the domesticated dogs, he pointedly ignored. Coddled, and soft, these beasts had not the faculty to understand the bond shared here, or why to allow this two-legged piece of him his solitude simply smelled wrong.

To Arahim's right, the path to the watchtower wound away from the frozen grove up into the cliffs overlooking the sea and harbor. Soft, wan, spectral light spilled from every window, bleeding a dance of golden ghosts over the dark waves, and cresting caps.

Like breaking glass, the tide sounded across the weathered, uneven rocks at its base. Echoing off of the crescent of jagged mountains, windshorn and striated by patient time, which hemmed in Cove's backend. The dark grey stone where, enthroned, the rising sun heralded Day, now sat perfectly still, shawled in stars and shadow.

So soft a sound carried over a distant, meandering climb, it yet embraced him without judgment. A sighing susurration, in a theatre of punctuated clamor. The disparity insinuating itself into the tapestry of his being, and coloring the many pieces of memory.

Propping himself against a tree, and rearranging himself, Arahim opened himself wide.

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